Dictators as Gatekeepers

Born in 1979, Christian studied sociology, economics, philosophy in Bremen and Milan, and Global Studies in Berlin, Buenos Aires and Delhi. From 2006 to 2014 he served as editor of the daily newspaper Taz.de, after which he has worked there as reporter. Together with Simone Schlindwein and Daniél Kretschmar, he was received an award for the migration project "Migration Control" from the German Otto Brenner Foundation in 2017. is based on his research. He can be contacted on Twitter: @chrjkb.

The USA is divided around the wall President Trump wants to build along the Mexican border. Europe has long answered this question at its own southern border: put up that wall but don't make it look like one. Today the EU is trying to close many deals as it can with African states, making it harder and harder for refugees to find protection and more dangerous for labor migrants to reach places where they can earn an income. But this is not the only effect: the more Europe tries to control migration from Africa, the harder it becomes for many Africans to move freely through their own continent, even within their own countries. Increasingly, the billions Europe pays for migration control is declared as official development assistance (ODA), more widely known as 'development aid, supposedly for poverty relief and humanitarian assistance. The EU is spending billions buying African leaders as gatekeepers, including dictators and suspected war criminals. And the real beneficiaries are the military and technology corporations involved in the implementation.